Ranking Religious Musicals from Heretical to Holy

Now that The Book of Mormon is Broadway’s second-biggest box-office hit of the year and two revivals of Christian-themed musicals — Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar — are making their way back to the stage this year, we think it’s fair to say that the theater has seen the way of the Lord. Has someone been putting sacrament in the water? Or have playwrights just gotten in touch with their devout — and devoutly satirical — sides? Either way, we’re more interested in how the current slate of God-oriented programming plays measures up to holy productions past, so we’ve ranked seven of them from burn-in-hell blasphemy to virginal virtue after the jump.

7. The Book of Mormon

A collaboration between the creators of South Park and Avenue Q, The Book of Mormon takes the cake as the most sacrilegious item on this list. Missionaries Elder Price and Elder Cunningham are sent from Salt Lake City to Uganda to work their magic, but, met by a warlord-ruled village, rampant STIs, and more problems than watching The Lion King prepared them for, they are in for a combination of cursing and holy names that’s blasphemous even to an audience of atheists. It’s okay, though; Mormons seem to love it.